


no control

by blueinkedbones



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, PTSD, Pining, Self Loathing, and denial, so much pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 19:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12394857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueinkedbones/pseuds/blueinkedbones
Summary: Stiles dropped out of school.That's it, that's the story. That's the whole story.There wasn't a bigger reason. He just didn't know what he was doing there. Werewolves, and fox demons, and the whole world's just oblivious. And none of this actually matters. Philosophy, like Stiles really has to delve into the trolley problem to learn about making hard decisions.Sacrifices. He's all full up on the idealism he can stomach.And just, and just. Scott's gonna be a doctor. Gonna save lives, make the world a better place. And Derek never went to college, because his whole family was massacred when he was in high school, but he's still breaking his back for every in-danger stranger in Beacon Hills.Stiles, he's just taking up space.





	no control

There's one gay bar in Beacon Hills, and it's Stiles' home away from home. Where talking isn't required, where no one expects anything. A quick fuck, or a longer one, or just a free drink here and there, an easy ego boost. Watching the ceilings spin in unfamiliar apartments, and taking down numbers he has no plans to actually ever call. The last thing he wants is stability. Stability, which turns into mundanity, which turns into claustrophobia, is this it? Is this seriously, seriously it? His whole life?

Even Derek, he's so reliable. Stiles could call him wasted and scratched up, still smelling like some stranger, and Derek's fine with it. His little werewolfy senses have to pick it up, but he never says anything. Never looks at the hickeys for more than a second. Never sighs too sharp, or turns away, or breathes out like he's disgusted. Like he's sick of this, being Stiles' after-fuck Uber, his getaway car.

They're both hometown heroes who never made anything of themselves, but at least Derek has an excuse. And he's the last, the last guy who'll ever use it. And then there's Stiles, slumping in against Derek's dash, Derek's hand on his chest, his hip, securing his seat belt. Settling steady on his shoulder, and Stiles is so dizzy, so unbelievably sober.

“Sorry,” he says, and Derek says, “It's no problem.”

And then Stiles is dragging the door open, vomiting all down the swaying road behind them, Derek's brakes screeching, Derek's arm flying out against his body like a safety bar.

“I would've stopped,” Derek says, he's wild-eyed. His arm still around Stiles, curling closer, and that's its own kind of motion sickness. The wind through the open door, the scrape in Stiles' throat, the shock in Derek's face.

“It just kind of happened,” Stiles says. “No time for a warning.”

“Okay,” Derek says, nodding, but he doesn't move, and Stiles' eyes burn, and all he can think about is how much another drink would clear all of this up. Or blur it, whatever. Same difference.

But he's not, he has a handle on it. He's seen his dad go down that road, he's not stupid.

“Can I stay with you?” he says, because Derek'll stop him. Derek'll make sure.

“Of course,” Derek says.

 

Stiles works in the bowling alley on the corner of Milton, between the Arby's and the combination KFC/Taco Bell. Actual name, up in flickering four-foot letters: Beacon Hills Bowling Alley. Which, honestly, really encapsulates the kind of creativity he's dealing with on a daily basis. It's a slow-burning effigy to capitalism and bad carpeting choices, selling half-priced beers and bar food and only barely making enough money to keep the lights on. Any minute now, it'll die too, when all the day-drinking twenty-something townies turn thirty and grow actual personalities and interests that don't involve near-constant quasi-ironic Big Lebowski references, and honestly, if Stiles wasn't bi and like, two percent more intelligent, he'd just be describing himself. You don't end up in that special kind of shithole unless you belong there, in some soul-deep, endlessly depressing way. There's nothing like eight hours of dealing out sweaty shoes and balls and drinking enough Pepsi to master the pop-to-ice ratio and physically vibrate with energy and exhaustion at the same time. Really brings out the winner in you.

Derek comes by once, and Stiles wants to divorce from his actual body. Wants to just go invisible, or stop existing. It's enough seeing old BHH kids he can barely remember, all their blurred-together faces, all their eyes widening in recognition, What, _Stiles_ , here? Here, in this place where dreams come to die, if dreams ever even come here. And why would they? BHBA, it's a great sleazy blind date spot, a cool place to get murdered in a TV procedural. There's no reason to actually _work_ here. Not if you ever had one iota of potential.

All those barely-different reactions, the swallowed down or not so swallowed down surprise, all the too-certain questions. No, but what do you _really_ do? Besides this.

The summer rush is the most soul-crushing. When the guys who actually got out and did something with their lives come back to gloat. And just gape at Stiles, just lose their collective minds.

But Derek, that's different.

No one believes in Stiles like Derek. Even after Stiles dropped out, even after enough rounds driving the fuckmobile to figure out what Stiles' life is like now. Derek thinks this is all temporary. That Stiles is gonna pick up, any second, and take over the world somehow. Be this incredible inspiration to everyone.

It never seems to sink in that Stiles' life is just—this. This revolving door of dicks and dumb bullshit that doesn't matter. Derek's the one protecting people. Stiles can barely get up in the morning. Consider breakfast, and skip it out of nausea, and make coffee, and find a number on his palm. And even contemplating scrubbing it off is too much that early, so it just stays there, until it fades. Until his skin's a longer contacts list than the one in his phone, and he only thinks about it when someone grabs his wrist to add a new one, frowns down at it. “Popular.”

“What can I say,” Stiles says. His skin's too tight around his skull. He can feel the edges of it, pulled taut, all the muscles pulsing. “I'm in high demand.”

“You know what?” this one dude says. “Don't worry about it.” Leaving the last few digits off, just letting him go.

Stiles never sees him again, Stiles was never _going_ to see him again, but it still stings, a little.

 

Derek comes to the bowling alley, once, and it's like reality, crashing into place. Crashing into Stiles: Hey, bud! This, this shame you're feeling? You should be feeling this _all the time_.

“Stiles,” Derek says. “There's someone—” Stopping, frowning at him. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, I'm great,” Stiles says. His plastic smile's starting to ache. “All-time high, right here.”

Derek just looking at him, uncomprehending, or maybe he just can't make his version of Stiles fit with this one. And Stiles, really, Stiles doesn't need this.

“What, dude?” he says. “Leave me alone. I'm working.”

And Derek nods, he just nods. He doesn't even try to argue.

He just goes.

 

Stiles dropped out of school.

That's it, that's the story. That's the whole story.

There wasn't a bigger reason. He just didn't know what he was doing there. Werewolves, and fox demons, and the whole world's just oblivious. And none of this actually matters. Philosophy, like Stiles really has to delve into the trolley problem to learn about making hard decisions. _Sacrifices_. He's all full up on the idealism he can stomach.

And just, and just. Scott's gonna be a doctor. Gonna save lives, make the world a better place. And Derek never went to college, because his whole family was massacred when he was in high school, but he's still breaking his back for every in-danger stranger in Beacon Hills.

Stiles, he's just taking up space.

Lydia, she's a genius. She's doing math on a level Stiles can't even comprehend. A level where just calling it _math_ makes you an instant ignoramus. Where all his focus, all his concentration, all the Adderall in the world can't make it more penetrable.

And Stiles always knew she was a genius, it wasn't a secret. But he was up there, too. In Beacon Hills, in their tiny dying town of more abandoned sites than inhabited ones, he was smart, and that meant people thought they were the same. She was first, and he was second, and obviously, obviously that means they're equally brilliant. Plus, Lydia Martin, come on. She's smart, but she's—popular. You know, she's _surprisingly_ smart. For a popular girl, who likes boys, and fashion, and makeup.

Stiles, he's an asocial nerd. So _obviously_ he's smarter.

So, what's that? What are you doing? With your life, what incredible—Oh, you're in community college? Really?

Wait, _really_?

Scott's, what? Medical school?

But you're the smart one.

Aren't you?

 

_Aren't you?_

And he's not.

He's not.

It's really something, realizing that.

 

Derek tried to play it like it didn't blow his little werewolfy mind. Even though the dude looked like he'd missed a step, like that can't be right, _community_ college? And he didn't mean to say it. He looked so sorry to have said it, the second it came out.

“High school's the glory days, dude,” Stiles said. “I don't have to tell you that.”

It was a shitty thing to say, so they were even. Derek looking a little sucker punched, but nodding, he just took it. And somehow, that just made Stiles angrier.

“Shit happens,” he said. “Not everyone's a merit scholar. Or some self-sacrificing superhero, just running around trying to get themselves killed. Sorry to disappoint.”

And then they didn't speak, for a while.

 

Stiles dropped out two semesters in. Did not pass go, did not collect two hundred dollars. Got a loser job in a bowling alley, got a regular rotation going at the gay bar. Called Derek from Jungle, drunker than life, and Derek came, of course Derek came. Found him plastered, peeled him off the side of his Jeep, said, Stiles, gimme the keys. Fought with him a little bit over them, just barely scuffling, and then Stiles went limp in his arms.

“Not fair, you know,” Stiles said. “All the wolfy advantage. Plus you're s... sober.”

“I don't have a choice,” Derek said.

“ _Suuckss_ ,” Stiles said. “Your life suucks.”

“Maybe,” Derek said, and shouldered the passenger door open, eased Stiles in.

 

For the most part, it was the same.

Stiles had a job, he had responsibilities. And then he had the night, for whatever else he wanted. And what he wanted was to forget the past eight hours of his life. To lose the forced hyper grin, and exhausting enthusiasm, and do anything but be a peppy minimum wager in a dying industry.

He wasn't planning on being _popular_. On that first call to Derek becoming a habit he doesn't even reconsider until he's two seconds to spraying chunks against his windshield. On just telling his dad, I'm with Derek, don't worry. Yeah, everything's fine.

Scott's in pre-med, Lydia's changin' the world. Stiles is smoking weed in some random dude's bedroom, snorting up at hilarious shadows, staring at his hands.

His hands.

And the room tilts, and gravity drags him down again. And the dude's like, “Whoa,” still laughing, and Stiles doesn't even know what laughing is. It's just this sound, just this hysterical sound babies make. When everything's so incomprehensible, there isn't anything left to do but just let your body take over.

Derek and his car, and it's not a Camaro anymore, it's a Toyota. Real soccer mom shit. And Stiles doesn't even know when that happened. When Derek went from leather jackets and glaring all the time to these soft soft henleys and all this _concern_.

“Drugs?” Derek says, which is really the most hilarious thing. He's such an innocent little virgin, it's adorable.

“Barely,” Stiles says. “And, and next to what I take, that's _prescribed_ , on the daily—like, you know how addictive that stuff is?”

“Not if you need it,” Derek says, which, fine. He's done some research. Go him.

“So maybe I do,” Stiles says, and Derek doesn't say much, after that.

 

It just keeps happening, and happening. And then it's six years later, and nothing's different, unless you're everyone else.

Time means something to everyone else.

To Stiles, it just... keeps going.

 

And then, this one dude. As nameless and faceless as anyone else in the lineup, but he does something different. Takes Stiles' wrist, takes in the faded lines of numbers and names. And says, “Someone's been busy.”

And six years ago that would've got Stiles up, sputtering. Swearing, Are you _serious_? Fuck you, dude, you don't know me.

But it's not really a secret, at this point. Stiles is done trying to prove anything. He's set the bar low, and anyone who wants it higher can just stand there and be disappointed.

“They're just offers,” Stiles says. “What's yours?”

And the guy pins him down, and bites. 


End file.
